New Yorkers got a thorough lesson on the difference between a constitutional amendment and a law. Read More
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The number of New York residents with incomes above $1 million hit a new high in the Wall Street boom year of 2021—but the state's share of all U.S. income millionaires dropped lower, according to new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data released to Read More
A new report from the Empire Center reveals hidden and rising costs, questionable assumptions and emerging transparency and practical issues resulting from New York’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). Read More
The headlong, secretive process around implementing New York's 2019 Climate Act – inherited from a governor who resigned in disgrace – runs the risk of saddling New Yorkers with both a less reliable electrical grid and rules across the entire economy that impose enormous expense. Read More
New York State's budget-making process sometimes works like a closed loop, as interest groups on the receiving end of state spending reinvest a portion of their proceeds to lobby Albany for still more money. Read More
In this episode of Messages of Necessity, Ken Girardin and E.J. McMahon from the Empire Center discuss New York's taxpayer-funded subsidies for film and television production. Together, they examine the findings of an independent study commissioned b Read More
Pay records for more than 168,000 county, city, town, village and other public employees were added today to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. In addition to the searchable data, the Empire Center also released the updated edition of What They Make, its annual analysis of the state fiscal year 2023 payrolls for local governments outside New York City. Read More
The 2023 edition of What They Make, the Empire Center’s annual report on public payrolls, allows New York taxpayers to compare this key element of local government costs around the state. Read More